When Jen Taylor Friedman began working in her field, she had no colleagues,
contemporaries or competition – basically, she had a monopoly. Today, the number
of people following in her footsteps is growing, and she couldn’t be
happier.

In 2007, Taylor Friedman, now 32, was believed to have become
the first known soferet, or female ritual scribe, to complete a Torah scroll in
modern times. Today she is working on her fourth, and estimates by various
people of the number of other women working as sofrot range from nine to 50. But
acceptance of the practice is still confined to a small
community.

Shoshana Gugenheim, a soferet and artist who lives outside
Jerusalem, says she spent a long time not telling people what she did for a
living.

“I was afraid of the repercussions... I just didn’t want people
to know,” she says. “I heard about another scribe in Jerusalem, who I very
peripherally know, who cried when he found out that women were becoming scribes
because it was so painful to him that women were doing it.”

But she also encounters the opposite reaction, of people purposely seeking out
women to write their Torah scrolls to support their work. To that end, Gugenheim
was the lead scribe on a Torah scroll completed in 2010 by six female scribes,
called The Women’s Torah Project, for the Kadima Reconstructionist synagogue in
Seattle, Washington.

When Gugenheim, the lead scribe on the Torah
project, was asked to work on the scroll, “it was important to me that there
would be other women scribes. As they showed up and if they were appropriate we
would bring them into the project, and over the course of five years we brought
five other women in, who wrote varying amounts, and that was really the
fulfillment of my dream and their dream.”

And while Gugenheim appreciates
those who look to only use female scribes, “obviously we want to be judged on
the quality of our writing and not the fact that we’re women.” Or, as Taylor
Friedman put it, “it’s not about what you’ve got in your pants, it’s about
Torah.”

But it is precisely the gender of the scribes that that has drawn
so much attention. In 2011, Julie Seltzer – who also worked on The Women’s Torah
Project, completed a year and a half as the focal point of an exhibition at the
Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, writing a Torah scroll from start
to finish. Since then, Seltzer, who was taught mostly by Taylor Friedman, has
written another Torah scroll, for the Reform Congregation Beth Israel in San
Diego, which she completed in August.

In 2003, a woman named Avielah Barclay was thought to become the first certified
female scribe in modern history. While she has written several megilot
Esther and worked on repairing existing Torah scrolls, it is unclear if she ever
completed work on a Torah scroll, and did not respond to repeated interview
requests.

FOR HUNDREDS of years, the world of Jewish ritual scribes has
been dominated by the Orthodox community – which still categorically rejects the
idea of a soferet. In 2007, Taylor Friedman wrote an article defending the
practice from a halachic perspective in Meorot, the online journal of Yeshivat
Chovevei Torah, an open modern Orthodox rabbinical school in New York City. The
school’s dean, Rabbi Dov Linzer, countered with his own responsum, declaring a
Torah scroll written by a woman to be invalid.

Linzer, who has attracted
attention for his support of female spiritual leaders of synagogues and a more
gender-balanced wedding ceremony, told The Jerusalem Post that the arguments
Taylor Friedman put forth “were really pretty weak,” and he struggled with the
decision to print it.

“Do you print the article and write the rejoinder
because you don’t want to silence voices and silence discussion?” he said, “or
do you feel that it is inappropriate to print because the argument is not made
strongly enough and printing it gives it more weight than it deserves?”

Ultimately, Linzer said, he and the school made the decision that “it’s better
to have an open discussion about this and put out the issues and make the
argument.”

While the journal has engaged on controversial issues in the
past, in this case, “all the sources are very clear: A woman can’t write a sefer
Torah,” he said. Specifically, the Talmud quotes a rabbi that says a Torah,
mezuza or tefillin “written by a heretic, an informer, a heathen, a slave, a
woman, a minor, a Cuthean and an irreligious Jew are disqualified.” Maimonides –
a 12th century rabbinic scholar – and the Shulhan Aruch, a 16th century halachic
work, rule in accordance with that position.

In her article, Taylor
Friedman – who describes herself as a post-denominational, halachic-observant
egalitarian Jew – points to the other positions cited by the Talmud, which don’t
reference women being deemed invalid, leaving room open for that possibility, as
well as another talmudic passage, which in one of its printed versions also
leaves women off the list of those unable to be a sofer.

Rabbi Simcha
Roth, an Israeli Conservative rabbi from Herzliya who was the editor of the
first Masorti prayer book, issued a responsum in 2009 stating that a Torah
scroll written by a woman is permissible for use in a communal
synagogue. Roth, who died earlier this year, wrote in his ruling that
since contemporary rabbis today obligate women in the learning of Torah, they
should certainly be eligible to write a scroll.

WHATEVER THEIR
affiliation, most sofrot understand the narrow acceptability of their work.
Hanna Klebansky, a rabbi and scribe based in Jerusalem and affiliated with the
Conservative movement, says she makes it clear to anyone who purchases a mezuza
from her what its halachic status is.

“It is important that they know
that this is a special mezuza written by a woman,” she said, “that can only be
used in houses with families that honor the idea of equality between men and
women in Halacha and religion. I don’t want it to be used by people who would
not accept women writing a mezuza; it would not be kosher for
them.”

Klebansky, 40, a native of the former Soviet Union, says she sells
50 to 60 mezuzot a year, and is currently working on her first Torah scroll.
Though she, too, participated in the Women’s Torah Project, it is important, she
says, to complete a scroll on her own, and in Israel.

“It is not
commissioned by any congregation, it is my personal project,” she told the Post,
adding that anyone can sponsor a letter in the scroll for 50 agorot. “When I am
finished, any congregation, any group of people, can use the Torah with my
blessing... I’m not getting any money from it,” she said, but “it’s very
important to me that in Israel there will be a Torah scroll written by women so
I write a lot... there are so many events against women [in Israel]
excluding them from the public domain so I think their voices are very important.”

Taylor Friedman is
glad to see more women working as sofrot, and even trains many herself in New
York.

“The idea that women are allowed to do stuff that is important has
continued to gain momentum,” said the UK native. “It is less of a novelty now,
which is lovely. It used to be that when you’d talk to people they’d want to
talk about gender and now they mostly want to talk about Torah, which is
absolutely the way I’d rather have it.”

This summer, she told the Post,
she took on two apprentices, and cites many other colleagues from around the
world working on scribal projects.

“It’s awesome. When I started out
doing this in 2003, I didn’t have any female colleagues I could hang out with
and talk shop with. Now there’s a whole landscape full of lady scribes. I love
it,” she said, noting that she wants to form a fellowship of female scribes to
swap tips and talk shop with. “I was having a joke with a friend the other day
about whether we could have a minyan of sofrot.”

While Taylor Friedman
has written on her website that she is “personally no longer interested in
habituating non-egalitarian frameworks,” she recognizes that there are those who
don’t view her work the same way she does.

“We have a responsibility as
female scribes to keep our work out of Orthodox communities,” Taylor Friedman
said in a 2011 discussion with Seltzer at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. “I
feel that very strongly and I hope I pass that on to my students... it is like
if we have a nonkosher kitchen, we wouldn’t feed kosher-keeping people from our
non-kosher kitchen because human feeling says that would be a wrong thing to
do.”

NAVA LEVINE-COREN aims to balance her own Orthodox views with her
desire to work as a religious scribe. The 31-year-old Jerusalem resident works
as a soferet and calligrapher – but only on ketubot and megilot Esther, which
she sees as permissible for women to write according to Jewish law.

“I
really felt a deep desire to write a sefer Torah,” she says, but after studying
the sources repeatedly, “it became clear to me that I was not going to find a
halachic source that would say that a sefer Torah written by a woman is kosher
and I just decided to accept that.” But, she said, “I’m very excited that there
are women writing sifrei Torah and I love that it is happening in our world.
It’s a personal choice that I made for myself [not to write a Torah scroll] but
I’m happy that there’s this movement and that women are writing and that women
are connected to the Torah in this way.”

In Orthodox law, women have a
halachic obligation equal to that of men to hear Megilat Esther, read on Purim,
which leads many rabbis to validate a scroll written by a
woman.

“Somebody that wants to rely on that position [that women may
write megilot Esther] is on strong halachic grounds,” said
Linzer.

Levine-Coren has written three megilot, one of which is used by
her congregation in the Nahlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem every Purim.

“I
know that not everyone would read from it but there’s no question in my mind
that it’s fine for me to write it,” she says. Though Levine-Coren has come to
terms with her role, she finds that discussing her work with others only serves
to remind her of her limitations.

“Most people right away say ‘I didn’t
know women could write tefillin and mezuzot,’ and they automatically assume I
write those things and I tell them that I don’t,” she says. “It’s a little bit
challenging because I’m always kind of confronted with my limitations... but
it’s OK.”

Levine-Coren said while she has come to terms with the fact
that she will never write a Torah scroll by herself, she would still like to
participate in a communal project should one arise. And while Orthodoxy would
not find such a scroll kosher, it does not forbid the very act of scribing by
women.

“There would be no prohibition in writing it,” said Linzer, “the
only concern would be about having a nonkosher sefer Torah around – you might
come to accidentally use it.”

In addition to working regularly on
ketubot, Levine- Coren, who studied studio art in New York, participated in the
Women of the Book project, initiated by Gugenheim. The ultimate goal is
to create a visual interpretation on parchment of each of the 54 Torah portions
by 54 female artists, that will be combined into one scroll to become a
traveling exhibit.

Levine-Coren has also began teaching sofrut to others,
an experience she describes as “really fun.”

ONE OF THE largest hurdles
for women scribes to overcome is access to training. In Israel, the courses and
certification process are closed to women, and most traditionally trained sofrim
are unwilling to teach them. Taylor Friedman says she is largely self-taught –
and is herself teaching many others – but the majority of the women interviewed
in this article were trained by one Jerusalem man, whose identity they fiercely
protect.

The man, a rabbi and trained sofer from an ultra- Orthodox
background, also asks for his name not to be used.

“I look haredi,” he
said, but noted, “I have a bit of a complicated identity.” The rabbi says he has
trained fewer than 10 women as sofrot, and while his immediate family knows
about his work, “the people that I daven [pray] with would be shocked and upset”
to learn about his activities.

The scribe said whenever he takes on a
student or teaches a group, he explains from the outset what the Orthodox
Halacha is on sofrut.

“I have always made clear to everyone what the
Orthodox Halacha is specifically regarding women writing,” he said, “and after
that point I feel like I’ve done my duty and responsibility. Where a person –
man or woman – takes that from there is on their shoulders.”

The rabbi
said his students are all aware of his positions on the issue.

“If one of
my women students were to write a mezuza I can’t use it,” he said, “because it’s
not considered halachically kosher.”

Gugenheim seconds this
incongruity.

“He doesn’t accept the work that I do,” she says. “If I were
to scribe another sefer Torah he wouldn’t accept that for [reading in a
synagogue] because it’s not according to Halacha, but he was really very
supportive of my whole process of scribing,” she said, because he knows there is
no prohibition against teaching women.

According to the rabbi, when he
first encountered a female student who was serious about training as a soferet,
he asked some of his contemporaries what he should do.

“At that point it
wasn’t clear to me if really from a halachic perspective I should participate in
training her to a higher degree... but the people that I asked didn’t discourage
me from doing it. One of the justifications I feel for teaching women to write
is that there are many halachic authorities who allow a Megilat Esther written
by a woman as an absolutely kosher megila... if a woman can write a megila she
has to learn how to write first.

“I don’t have to be so representative of
the halachic decision that I am the one who decides to allow or disallow someone
to gain the skill.”

The rabbi, who continues to work as a scribe in
Jerusalem and teach both men and women the ancient calligraphic art, is still
supportive of his students’ work.

“If a woman came to me and said, ‘I’ve
been offered to write a sefer Torah,’ I would say personally great, it’s a
tremendous validation, a wonderful opportunity,” he said. “But according to the
Halacha unfortunately this is a place where there is a tremendous dissonance
between contemporary culture and traditional Jewish culture.

Contemporary
culture is very anxious to embrace women being involved in every aspect of
societal life, communal life and religious life, and the Jewish tradition has a
different orientation.”

Sites Of Interest

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